TAA i.3.27.7
Annotated typewritten report on fourth (innermost) sepulchral shrine, page 5. Carter uses the correct object number (239) for this shrine but refers to it as the "first outermost shrine".
The whole text or part of the text is fully struck through on this page but is not indicated in the transcription. On this page, strikethrough formatting is reserved for the author’s edits and deletions within the main body of the text, which would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.
© Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford
5
Atlantica, Mannetti, or Cedrus Libani, Barrelier; (2) Christ's
Thorn – Zizyphus Spina-Christi; Willd. The chips of wood
identified as cedar were faced with gesso and gilded, and they
evidently came fo/<r>om the inner surface of the chief beam; while
the piece identified as Christ’s Thorn was not gilded, and was
thus evidently a chip from one of the tongues employed for
joining up the chief beam to the panel. It therefore may be
fairly safely said that the planking of this shrine is of cedar
wood (probably Cedrus Libani from the Lebanon or Asia Minor),
and that and that Christ’s Thorn wood, owing to its harder and
tougher nature, was used for the strengthening dowels and tongues
in its joinery.
With the exception of the roof, which is inscribed with
formulae in incised relief work, the entire external and in-
ternal surfaces of this shrine have been sculptured in low
bas-relief with religious representations and texts. These
formulae, texts, and representations are all worked upon a
gesso coating, which has been overlaid with a thin layer of
gold laid on as gold leaf.